Bait This! (A 300 Moons Book) (4 page)

D
erek strode quickly
after the curvy dark-haired woman.

His shoes were filling with dirt, his clothes were practically useless, and he was sure his body should be hurting.

But he didn’t care.

His senses were filled with this wonderful woman.

Suddenly, instead of fighting off the bear’s acute hearing and sense of smell, he was urging the creature on to do its best. And the animal was complying happily.

The woman moved very quickly through the trees. But there was not the scent of a single drop of sweat on her lovely brow and her heart was beating slowly and steadily.

So those magnificent curves were intact in spite of regular and strenuous exercise.

The bear admired her efficient, bear-like metabolism, while Derek wondered what it would be like to watch her hiking without the jeans and t-shirt.

They were both taken aback when she turned suddenly, violet eyes flashing.

“I know you’re looking at my ass, but please focus on the mountain,” she snapped, gesturing to the steep bank that led to the creek below. “It’s easy to get hurt up here if you don’t know the terrain.”

Whoa.

In fairness, he had been looking
exactly
at her gorgeous ass, but it seemed wildly confident for her to say so. Derek was slightly annoyed.

But the bear’s fur rippled as if he had been charged with electricity. He pressed against Derek’s skin excitedly as if he had no question that surely now Derek would take her.

No,
Derek told the animal.

He looked up. The woman was staring at him like he had two heads. Which, if you thought about it, between the bear and himself…

“Okay, okay, let’s go,” he said. “I’m paying attention, don’t worry.”

She nodded and turned back to the mountain.

Her supposition that he would follow irked him. He was used to being in charge.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

She paused, but didn’t turn back to him.

“To my house, we’ll take cover from the storm that’s coming and see about getting you back to civilization.”

She began to walk again and Derek followed, but something didn’t feel right.

He had the distinct feeling that she was leading him further into the woods.

But why? She was attracted to him, the bear knew it even if she wouldn’t acknowledge it herself. Why wouldn’t she bring him home?

He tried to picture what her home might look like but couldn’t get his thoughts past a sumptuous bedroom where he could tame her wildness.

Damn it, he was lost in the woods with a beautiful woman who was behaving suspiciously and an inner bear wrestling for control of his body.

But he didn’t exactly have any brilliant alternatives. He was going to have to take it at face value that she was planning to help him. She had no reason not to. Finding a plane crash victim and leading them into the wilderness didn’t make sense.

She walked on ahead of him.

He followed, as the nearly full moon peeked over the ridge. Thanks to his bear, the moonlight was plenty to light his way. He wondered how the woman was doing so well in the darkness.

Was she a shifter, too? No, he would have smelled it for sure.

A slight break in the trees suddenly bathed her in silver moonlight. Her dark hair gleamed, and the bear wrenched abruptly at Derek’s mind for dominance.

He winced in pain as the mark on his hip flared up like someone had pressed him with a hot branding iron.

Before he could stop it, his skin was crawling, fingertips of agony along his spine telling him the change was coming, even if he fought it.

With a massive effort, Derek shook himself hard, clenching his fists, and groaning with effort. Somehow he managed to overturn the change.

But in his struggle, he lost his footing. He teetered on the edge of balance for a moment, sure he could right himself. But before he could get his feet back under him, he slid over the outcropping that led to the creek below.

The first instant of falling through the air brought a flashback of the plane crash.

Then the water embraced him, so cold he thought his heart might stop beating. When the back of his head connected with something solid in the bed of the creek, everything went dark.

I
n Derek’s
dream the firelight made shadows dance on the wall. The air was rich with the scent of pumpkin soup.

He knew it wasn’t just a dream - there were bits of memory woven into it.

Though in real life he had been the oldest, in the vision, he and Johnny, Chance and Darcy were all the same age, the age Chance had been when he’d arrived.

They were wrestling on the rug as they always had before supper. But this time they were in animal form.

Chance was a natural wrestler. He had Derek pinned down on his back and was making happy scolding sounds, while Darcy, growling, tugged at Chance’s ear to pull him off. She had always been so loyal to Derek. Johnny was sitting off to the side, swishing his own tail and watching the scales shimmer in the firelight. Derek’s heart danced as he made a plan to pull Johnny unceremoniously into the fray - if he could get Chance off his chest.

Outside the window, the tall trees of Middleton bent under the weight of the fresh fallen snow. Tomorrow maybe they would go over to Tarker’s Hollow and ride their sleds down the big hill on the college campus.

“Kids,” Mom’s voice called over their cacophony of noises.

Instantly, the four stilled and rolled off of each other.

“Dinner’s ready, guys,” she laughed. “Come ’n get it.”

The other three slid upward into their human forms, and sauntered toward the kitchen.

Derek sat alone on the knotted rug, looking down at his furry paws with their long pointed claws.

“Derek?” Mom called from the other room.

He heard her familiar footsteps and tried to hide himself behind the rocking chair so she wouldn’t see that he wasn’t a boy.

She saw him right away, of course. Mothers could do that.

“Oh dear,” she said, trying to scoop him up.

But he was too heavy.

She pulled and tugged, but she could not lift him into her arms.

H
edda turned just
in time to see the man fly off the cliffside and drop into the creek.

She allowed herself a single moment of sheer panic before reining it in.

The fall was just enough that he could have broken his neck. The water from the mountain spring was cold, nearly freezing. She needed to act fast.

As she raced to the edge of the cliff and lowered herself down recklessly, hanging onto tree roots, she couldn’t help but remember the omen.

A single dove.

And the only thing to happen today was the arrival of this man. A man who had already crashed an airplane, been knocked out by her hasty curse, and flung himself directly into a creek for no reason she could discern.

Clearly the bad omen was to warn her about him. He wasn’t a demon, but he was trouble.

She could just walk away. No one would ever know.

Instead, she slid down the muddy bank, cursing herself for a fool.

She saw him immediately in the deepest part of the clear stream, a dark cloud swirling in the water around his head.

Shit.

He was huge. And now he was soaked and unconscious. How was she going to get him out?

She scanned the woods, then saw something she could use.

She studied the mostly dead oak. It was still standing, though nature would take its course soon enough.

Hedda reached into the oak with her mind.

She saw it as a sapling, stretching joyfully toward the delicate rays of light that filtered their way down to it between the larger trees. Felt its joy as it grew and became the home to a planet of life, its own as well as squirrels, birds, and entire societies of bugs. The agony of the lightning that had struck it, the pain of losing a huge limb, the suffocating sadness of starving as the broken limb leached nutrients from the living body.

When she knew it as if its life were her own, she lifted a hand.

“
Cadent,”
she told it, and showed it with her hand what she wanted.

The trees were silent for a moment.

Then there was a groan as the withered oak fell.

The top of its trunk hit the other side of the creek with a thundering crash, forming a bridge across the water.

She ran around the enormous root ball, and touched the bark of its trunk.

“
Sommo,”
she whispered, though blessing the tree with sleep was a silly waste of a touch of magic - it was no longer alive.

By now the man had been in the water for minutes - not seconds.

Hedda scrabbled across the tree bridge on her hands and knees until she was next to where he half floated, face down.

She reached out to grasp him by his clothing, but he had drifted just out of her reach.

She stretched out at a different angle. But still her fingers were an inch from his shirt.

There was no other way then.

Hedda held her breath and launched herself in.

The water stabbed at her with cold fingers, instantly penetrating every part of her, greedily sucking out every degree of warmth from every hidden crevice.

She ignored the pain of the cold and pushed her way a few steps, where she grabbed the man.

He was light in the water, and easy to drag, but getting him out would be another story.

She managed to hoist herself onto the trunk without letting go of his limp arm.

After her short time in the water, her whole body shook with the cold. The wind was picking up, the storm was almost on them.

She had to hurry.

Hedda pulled.

His body moved, but nowhere near enough to get him out.

She pulled again, but it was no use.

I will not leave this man in the water.

The need to protect him was overwhelming. It was beyond the feeling of a good Samaritan. Was she in shock?

She shook herself and reached for him again.

Holding onto the tree with her thighs for all she was worth, she was able to reach out far enough to grab his trouser leg with her other hand.

Calling on strength she didn’t know she had Hedda pulled until her muscles strained.

When she got him up on top of the tree, the force nearly made her fall off the other side.

He didn’t cough.

She forced herself not to care. It wouldn’t help anyone if she panicked now. She scrambled over him, and then pulled him the rest of the way onto the opposite bank.

Hedda rolled him over onto his side. She had no idea what she was supposed to do next. In the movies she would have flipped him on his back and done CPR. But that didn’t seem right.

She lay behind him and squeezed him around the waist, trying not to worry about the wound on the back of his head.

Nothing.

She squeezed him again.

He spluttered and vomited water.

She let go quickly and moved to where she could see his face.

He coughed again and again.

At last he sat up and studied her with those clear blue eyes.

“W-we have to g-go,” she stammered, the weight of the cold finally falling on her.

He stood, a little too quickly for what he’d just been through.

“Is your h-head okay?” she asked.

He nodded solemnly and took her hand.

His hand was inexplicably warm around hers.

She led him up the mountain through the trees. It was over here someplace. If only she weren’t so cold and so tired.

At last she saw the shape of it silhouetted in the moonlight.

It wasn’t really a cabin. It was more of a shelter, a porch with a roof and half walls forming a half-circle around a fire pit. Built by the local scouts to earn a wilderness badge years ago, it had been promptly forgotten since everyday life was wilderness in Copper Creek.

The air prickled at her skin and her bones ached with the cold.

By the time they got to the shelter she realized the man was supporting her, one arm wrapped around her waist.

Shouldn’t it have been the other way around?

They entered the small space and she lowered herself to the floor. At least the wind was no longer blowing through her.

“I’m going to get some wood before it starts raining,” the man told her, concern written on his face.

She nodded, hoping there were a few scraps of wood already in the fire pit so that she could get a fire going right away.

She crawled over to it and was happy to find a few sticks. She looked over her shoulder and when she could no longer see him, she whispered, “
Illumina
.”

A tiny spark appeared among the sticks. It glowed blue at first, but went flame colored quickly, and soon the tiny fire was crackling merrily.

Hedda held her hands over the flames as closely as she dared. The heat felt amazing. She hoped he found enough wood to get the thing to blaze. Most likely, a city guy would come back without enough to keep it going for an hour. Or, given his track record, he would manage to hit his head again or get eaten by a bear and not come back at all.

Somehow the thought made her sad, though they had only exchanged a few words and she didn’t even know his name.

“I’m here—
oh
,” the man said as he entered.

She looked up to see the surprise on his face and the enormous stack of wood in his arms. He might just be useful after all.

“I found a match,” she fibbed.

He smiled down at her.

At once she was overwhelmed by his masculine beauty. The dark hair, the cerulean eyes, the remains of his drenched and tattered shirt molding to the lean muscles of his arms and torso.

He should have been shivering as she was. He’d been in the water much longer than she had. And his head…

“Your head,” she gasped, horrified that she’d let her own discomfort allow her to forget he had a real injury.

“I’m fine,” he said, kneeling to place the wood near the fire pit.

“No, you’re not. I saw your head when I pulled you out of the water,” she insisted.

“Really, it was nothing. A little blood can make a minor scratch look like a big deal in the water,” he insisted, carefully arranging two good sized pieces of kindling in the fire. “I’m surprised you could get it going like this,” he remarked.

“Let me see your head,” she said, refusing to take the bait.